3 Holiday Tails

Whoa!

Jake, where are you going?

Oh, well. Hello.

How are you? Oh, hi.

Hi!

I see you've met Jake.

Yeah. Not shy, is he?

No. I'm Katherine Wright. I live upstairs.

Hi. I'm Lisa Haynes, downstairs.

Sorry. He just likes to stick his little nose into everything.

Don't you, Jake?

Well, he probably smells friends.

Friends? Yeah.

Oh! Oh. Goodness, Jakie, look.

Look! Yeah.

They are so precious.

I know, right? I was only going to get one,

but then I saw the litter and there were eight of them.

Eight puppies.

Yeah. These three were the closest.

This is Mario, Luigi, and Pasquale.

Hello. Hello. I didn't have the heart to separate 'em.

Aw! Oh, Jake.

So, anyway, she called last week, and they're engaged.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

Congratulations.

Michael's such a sweet guy, too.

They're going this Christmas to be with his parents in Idaho,

so, Rod and me... Rod's my husband...

it'll be our first Christmas away from home.

Aw.

Well, for me, home is, um...

Hmm...

Home is here. Now.

So does that mean you're spending Christmas here?

Yeah. Yeah. My mom travels a lot.

She's actually in Spain for a few months.

That's nice. What does she do?

As far as I can tell, enjoy herself thoroughly.

What about your dad?

He, uh... He passed away when I was in college.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's okay.

It was a long time ago.

He... He left my mom and sister and I when I was a kid,

so he was never really in the picture.

Wow! Look at that.

Oh...

Wow.

You okay?

Yeah.

Yeah, I'm fine.

It's just, um...

my ex.

I thought I threw out all the pictures.

Guess that one slipped by you, huh?

When you were packing.

Maybe.

Maybe you liked the frame?

Yeah. That's probably it.

You know, you want me to just slip that out of the frame

and throw that picture out?

No!

No. Thank you. It's...

You're not over him.

What? No.

No, no, no. It's...

No, no, no, no, no. No, ahh.

No, I am, I am. I'm over him. Trust me.

It's just, um...

It's just complicated.

We were friends forever.

Like, kids?

Like five years old.

That's a long time.

Yeah.

You know, he, um,

he didn't work up the courage to ask me out until college.

We wound up going to the same school, so...

We dated for a few years after graduation,

but, um...

I guess we figured something better would come along,

so we broke it off.

And, um... did it?

Excuse me?

Did something better come along?

I'm sorry. That is none of my business.

No. No, no, no. It's fine.

You know, at the end of the day, he and I were just...

Puppy love.

You know, I should probably get back and make Rod dinner.

I want you to come meet him soon.

Yeah, I'd love that.

And hey, thank you for helping me. Oh, no problem.

If you ever need anyone to walk Jake, please let me know.

I'll take you up on that. Perfect.

Welcome to the neighborhood, Lisa.

Thank you. Come on, old man.

Come on.

There you go. Upstairs. Upstairs.

It's all in the wrist. In the wrist?

Yeah.

Thank you. All right.

Helped my concentration.

You got a good shot for, um...

For what?

Oh, you know.

No, I don't know. What?

Uh, for, for...

An old guy.

I don't mean any disrespect.

I mean, are you 65?

Do I look 65? No!

No, no. You look, um... 'Cause your shot is great.

And you...

I mean, you're obviously in good shape. 40.

Tops.

Thank you. Thank you.

Your age is none of my business.

I've seen you around.

It's just usually someone of your...

My age?

No. Wisdom and experience. Usually on the golf course.

Oh, golf. Well, when I moved here after I retired,

I thought I'd try golf, but you know,

golf bored...out of me before I was retired.

I couldn't watch it on television.

I used to like basketball. Figured I'd try that.

May I? Sure.

Wow.

I played in college.

I'm David Bennett.

Rod Wright, David. Nice to meet you. Yeah.

Did you go pro?

No. Probably because I played bench mostly.

Horse? Sure.

Yeah? All right.

Where did you bench, at Duke?

No, I got a letter from them. I went to State.

State? Why?

A girl I knew went to State. Oh.

Well, I married a girl in college, too.

Didn't really work out like that for me.

I'm... I'm sorry.

We haven't talked in a couple years.

I hear she still lives in the area.

A lot like my basketball career.

Over.

Absolutely, Anna. No. Not at all.

We are fine.

We'll be fine.

Sweetheart, I love you, too.

And be sure to give Mitch our love, okay?

Happy almost Christmas.

Yeah. Bye.

You okay?

Yeah. Yeah.

So, you had a really good day today with that boy?

Uh, huh. David.

Yeah, yeah. Well, he seems like a nice kid.

I can't remember the last time I had a pick-up game of horse with some random kid.

You were probably a kid.

Yeah, I probably was.

So? Did you win?

This is good. What was this?

You know that girl downstairs? Lisa? Mm-hmm.

She's a really, really nice girl.

Yeah, is she? Look at us, making new friends with young people.

Oh, and Rod. You should see her puppies.

Yeah, puppies. She's got puppies.

Our puppy's getting pretty big, isn't he?

I wonder why. Don't feed him.

Okay. All right. Down, Jake.

Anyway, she said she's going to look after Jake

when we're with Jim and Patty tomorrow.

That's good.

So, um, you say this David is a nice guy?

I think so. I don't know.

He seems to be from what I could tell, playing a game of horse.

Is he single?

Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

It's kind of a coincidence, isn't it?

You meet a really nice boy. I met a really nice girl.

Today, on the same day. Yeah.

Are you getting bored with this retirement stuff?

No. I'm...

I'm having a great time.

You are? Yeah, you know.

Jim and Patty. The beach. The bikinis.

The, uh, pick-up basketball games.

Bikinis.

Come on, come on. Let's go this way.

Let's go this way. Wait for the other puppy.

Hi.

David?

What the hell?

There's, um, there's something I've been wanting to ask you.

Right.

No. No, no, no. Jake. Jake, no.

No, you can't go out there.

There's chocolate and glass and other bad stuff. No, no!